State Farm® Driver Feedback™ for iPhone Review

Apps, apps and more apps. State Farm has joined the mobile smart phone application movement with the introduction of their “Driver Feedback™” application.

Their goal is to help drivers become better at recognizing and ultimately correcting a few bad driving habits that lead to tickets and accidents…namely, hard acceleration, hard deceleration and hard swerves. Easy, right?

The app has what’s referred to as accelerometer recording technology, which measures acceleration, breaking, and cornering using GPS for trips you take. It’s really quite simple. You will have to visit a mobile phone/GPS triangulation website for the details on how it really works. TTAI can’t help you there.

Nothing really too amazing here, as many apps are used to track movements via GPS nowadays. Although it should be noted that State Farm does not collect the trip information, so no “Big Brother” concerns with this one.

What Does the App Offer?

As discussed, you can record your driving habits with the accelerometer. Also, you can view your alerts, presumably the “hard” accelerations, breaking and swerving, in a list format or overlaid on a map, which is a pretty cool feature.

Driver Feedback® also allows you to compare two trips against one another to see if you’re improving in areas where you tend to have trouble.

Mom and Dad (or your wife) will like the feature that allows you to send trip results via email and SMS. Proving you aren’t driving like a madman (or madwoman) may help relieve any undue stress about the matter!

Also, the app supports multiple users if necessary. Perhaps multiple teen drivers in the household or a competitive family unit will appreciate this capability.

Can My Insurance Rates Go Up?

We’re a little concerned you even asked this. If you’re a safe driver, you shouldn’t care. Seriously though, NO, State Farm does not use any of the information collected from the app to determine your overall insurance premium.

This differs from Progressive’s Snapshot program, where your habits are monitored as a means to develop a unique premium for you. Progressive states a driver may see as much as a 30% discount on their premium if their data demonstrates good driving habits.